Adopting an Abandoned Farm eBook

“Wall, I hope you’ll come off better’n
he did. He sunk such a pile that he got discouraged
and took to drink; then his wife, a mighty likely
woman she is (one o’ the Batchelders of Dull
Corner), couldn’t stand it and went back to
her old home, and he died ragged and friendless about
a month ago. Ef I’s you, I’d go over,
just to take warning and hold up in time.”

CHAPTER III.

Buying A horse.

“And you know this Deacon
Elkins to be a thoroughly reliable man in
every respect?”

“Indeed, I do,”
said honest Nathan Robbins. “He is the very
soul of
honor; couldn’t do a
mean thing. I’d trust him with all I have.”

“Well, I’m glad
to hear this, for I’m just going to buy a horse
of
him.”

“A horse?”

“Yes—­a horse!”

“Then I don’t
know anything about him!”

A truetale.

After furnishing my house in the aforesaid economical
and nondescript fashion, came the trials of “planting
time.” This was such an unfragrant and
expensive period that I pass over it as briefly as
possible. I saw it was necessary in conformity
with the appalling situation to alter one vowel in
my Manorial Hall. The haul altogether amounted
to eighteen loads besides a hundred bags of vilely
smelling fertilizers. Agents for every kind of
phosphates crowded around me, descanting on the needs
of the old land, until I began to comprehend what
the owner meant by “keeping it up.”
With Gail Hamilton, I had supposed the entire land
of this earth to be pretty much the same age until
I adopted the “abandoned.” This I
found was fairly senile in its worthless decrepitude.

My expenditure was something prodigious.

Yes, “planting time” was a nightmare in
broad daylight, but as I look back, it seems a rosy
dream, compared with the prolonged agonies of buying
a horse!

All my friends said I must have a horse to truly enjoy
the country, and it seemed a simple matter to procure
an animal for my own use.

Livery-stable keepers, complaisant and cordial, were
continually driving around the corner into my yard,
with a tremendous flourish and style, chirking up
old by-gones, drawing newly painted buggies, patched-up
phaetons, two-seated second-hand “Democrats,”
high wagons, low chaises, just for me to try.
They all said that seeing I was a lady and had just
come among ’em, they would trade easy and treat
me well. Each mentioned the real
value, and a much lower price, at which I, as a special
favor, could secure the entire rig. Their prices
were all abominably exorbitant, so I decided to hire
for a season. The dozen beasts tried in two months,
if placed in a row, would cure the worst case of melancholia.
Some shied; others were liable to be overcome by “blind
staggers”; three had the epizootic badly, and
longed to lie down; one was nearly blind. At
last I was told of a lady who desired to leave her
pet horse and Sargent buggy in some country home during
her three months’ trip abroad.